Open Letter to the Sussex County Democrat Committee Re: County Response to Covid-19

Audacity must be on sale this week, because the Sussex County Democrat Committee seems to have an
endless supply. In typical fashion, the group haphazardly attacks what they don’t
understand, or perhaps it is “business as usual”, political theatre, a dash of righteous
indignation sprinkled with willful ignorance.

In order to assert that the Sussex County Board of Chosen Freeholders has somehow
characterized the pandemic as “purely political rhetoric” surely confirms that they are living
quite comfortably in a tone-deaf echo chamber: nothing in, nothing out. They must have missed the
memo regarding the lack of funding provided to the County, compliments of their federal Democrat
representatives, Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill, who voted shoulder-to-shoulder with House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, resulting in the County receiving ZERO FEDERAL DOLLARS in direct CARES
Act funding to pay for adequate testing, personnel, and resources to battle the coronavirus until
the month of August. Or perhaps they remained in that same echo chamber when the County made dozens  and dozens of contacts with the NJDOH – all documented, mind you- as we saw our most vulnerable  population in our nursing homes under intentional siege by a Democrat Governor who ordered  Covid-19-positive patients to be accepted into our LTCFs and prohibited testing as a condition of patient intake, most notably at Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center, resulting in the total
deaths of 115 County residents. A 13% fatality rate, thanks to the unconscionable decision of
Governor Murphy, while field hospitals sat empty. Or perhaps they missed the agenda item where the
SCBCF requested the assistance of the NJ National Guard, an option provided to the State over a
month earlier by President Trump, but not mobilized to assist until the Murphy administration was
shamed by the media to act…again. And here we sit today with more questions than answers, with a
Democrat-controlled Legislature in complete denial and employing a full stonewall approach
to any and all attempts at an investigation. Dare I ask these individuals to look North at our
neighbors in Massachusetts; it’s high time NJ follows suit and holds those responsible for this
blatant disregard for human life. Elderly lives matter, albeit not to the Murphy administration.

What is utterly nonsensical is to think that a State can sustain an economic shutdown of epic
proportions through an egregious abuse of power via executive order. What is utterly nonsensical is
a Democrat organization supporting a Governor who proudly boasts that one can electronically
register to vote in a hospital emergency room in Newark in the middle of a pandemic, yet does not
permit in-person, electronic voting on Election Day. But what might be the absolute
most nonsensical is the Democrat nominee for Sussex County Freeholder, selected via write-in, who
uses social media as a battering ram to mock residents with anti-Semitic and anti-Christian
tirades, referring to Jesus as “dead flying zombie Jew”, with an image of Jesus crucified on the
cross, arms splayed instructing viewers to “stay six feet apart” in a pathetic attempt at Covid-19
humor in the wake of the legion of deaths in the County. Or perhaps they prefer the
post, “The Story of Passover: God kills a bunch of babies, except the Jewish ones. The
End”, peppered with the occasional images of individuals of various faiths praying, with mocking
language asserting, “Pray all you want; only science will save us”. Mr. Slockbower is absolutely
entitled to his beliefs; this is America. However, I question how Representative Gottheimer,
or any individual with religious convictions – or any modicum of decency – feels about a
candidate who preaches the Democrat company line of tolerance, while authoring the posts above. Who
hurls accusations of hate and bigotry at anyone and everyone who dares disagree with the
“progressive” idea of non-age- appropriate sex education standards. Here’s a fact for you: one
can reject the merit of education standards based upon lack of age-appropriateness,
independent of the gender of the parties involved, but that wouldn’t suit the narrative from
the left. Much easier to hurl “bigot” and “Puritan”. It makes for a better headline.

And I for one have grown weary of the problems presented for every solution, the myopic approach to
governance they claim to understand, and the general, combative tone and lack of tolerance they
espouse in each and every facet of their operations. So allow me to make a recommendation: put your
own political agendas and emotions aside, and start acting like leaders if you’d like to rise to
the occasion.

Dawn Fantasia
Sussex County Deputy Freeholder Director

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